Geek cred

I’d love to see some replies to this one, what makes you a geek?

I’m 29 now, got my first network admin job at 17 and first computer at 16. I spent that first year with a computer going crazy reading and learning back when SLIP connections to the net were hard to get!

I had an account on AOL on opening day.   I canceled my Compuserve account to afford it.

I turned down an offer to purchase a Cray supercomputer from a university.  It was bigger than the bedroom I wanted to put it in.

I can draw out the signal path of a mixing board, and have spent enough time recording music to be able to help people create semi professional home recording setups for under $5,000.

I blogged about Microsoft’s proposal to buy Yahoo at 3am, a few hours after Reuters caught it.

I’ve sold 4 different domain names for over $500 a piece.

I’ve run networks for international companies that had voip solutions, thanks to me, as far back as 1996.

My friend and I set up an always on VPN connection so that we could play Rise of Nations over the “LAN” of Cox Cable.

I ran NT 3.51 in a production environment before anyone even considered anything besides mainframes, netware, and unix.

I can make free calls from a large retailer’s phone system here in Las Vegas.

I’ve been heavily into databases for about 6 years, and into MySQL for about 2 years as I’ve been working part time with some crazy web developers. I’m all about design and architechting, standards based SQL programming, and MS SQL administration. Sometimes I write normal sentences in SQL via IM to amuse my developer friends.

I remember when slackware linux was the frontrunner, and I remember when linux was hard to install!

My bookshelves are overflowing with books in general, most of which are about technology related subjects.  You can see the list of books in my bedroom here.

I had a DEC machine in my bathroom, running TCP/IP.  I looked lovingly at it while surfing the Internet from my bathtub.

I’ve modded an xbox with no tools so that my wife could play emulated NES Tetris.

I vote for people based on their stance on technology related issues like Net Neutrality and spectrum availability.  Lessig owns me.

I’m pretty good with linux administration, exchange server, windows server, solaris, and more recently sharepoint and virtualization technologies like vmware.

I recently ordered a machine with 16gb ram for my bedroom, which will include a VMWare server running SSL tunneling to Amsterdam so that I can torrent in peace.

I read the Vista Resource kit from cover to cover for fun.

I know how to program and I never do it.  I’ve learned c, c++, hypercard, pascal, and shell scripting.

I know how easy it is to get into someone’s computer, and how much easier it is to steal an identity.

I know the IT systems in casinos like the back of my hand, I spent 8 years installing and supporting custom software for the gaming industry.  I’ve seen server rooms the size of a football field.

I’ve administered an OS/2 based document management system with an optical storage back end.

I’ve repaired broken CRT monitors with only a soldering iron and a screwdriver.

I had all my music in MP3 form before P2P really existed.

I can get BIOS level remote control to servers in China from my phone.

I actually know how BGP works.

I’ve chaired a special interest group for a local Macintosh user’s group.

I’ve been running IPv6 for years at home.

I’ve been offered to preview and review a technology book in the Head First series.

I’m going to add more as I think of them…what makes you a geek?